[Brynar, Northwestern Region]

A lone (fugl) flies through the air, landing on a nearby branch. In its beak it holds a small flower with drooped purple petals, and blackened berries on the stem. The small bird ruffles its feathers outward to stretch as it observes a woman in the fields. She wore a cream colored strap dress over a yellow long-sleeved undershirt. The gussets sewen into the bottom of the dress made her appear to almost glide over the valley grass, while the thin leather corset kept her figure in perfect shape. Hear long hair was in a lazy braided ponytail down her back, while her bangs draped over her eyes.

As the woman walks, she carols words in an undescribed language, a large empty wicker basket under her arm. She approaches two trees with a rope tied between them, and as she continues to sing, begins to effortlessly pull the clothing off the line while simultaneously folding them in her hands, being placed neatly in the basket.

[USS Fox, Main Bridge]

Yeager at the controls of the camouflaged bird watches the women intently, not noticing Doc approaching behind him. “Don’t tell me your using the drones to watch women? Does your subroutines have no shame?”

Yeager jumped at the sudden words, quickly manning the controls, and directing the ‘bird’ to fly back to the regions FOB. “NO No! I was not watching what could potentially be my next Ex-wife; I was collecting VALUABLE data!” Yeager quickly endorsed. “Look! See, period specific clothing designs on the clothing tree thing there, and I captured a voice print for the universal translator!” The navigator quickly pointed out to the data on the screen, turning his chair to face the deciding doctor.

“Uh huh…” Doc remarked, taking the PADD in his hands and tapping Yeager on the head in light beratement. “Hope that biological sample it was holding didn’t wilt too much in transport.” He commented as he walked away. Romen, who was sitting next to them the whole time leaned over and whispered “Busted…” with a chuckle.

Michael walks onto the bridge, herald by the telling ‘whoosh’ of the turbolift doors. Archie is already rising out of the Commanders seat as he begins to speak. “How are we looking?” Michael inquires, seeing everyone hard at work.

Without a word, Archie holds out a hand, directing Michael to the rear of the bridge where a status screen has been erected. Michael follows to see several charts and graphs listed with varying progress bars.

“Trixie took construction of cargo crates into forward operating bases for drone operations as a challenge, and constructed 19 in total before I cut her off.” Archie mentioned, waving his hand and showcasing each crate spread out positions on the continental map.

“Oh yea, on an unrelated note Skipper…Trixie said were out of empty cargo crates. Might need to order or replicate some more.” Yeager exclaimed from his station.

Michael crossed his arms and shook his head as a smirk crossed his lips. Archie groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “ANYWAY….as I was saying, we have already collected a broad scope of information on the people and landscape. Universal Translator is approximately 83% complete with its language analysis. Thankfully, everyone down below appears to speak the same language, so that makes things much easier.”

“We have cataloged over 50 species of fauna and aves, as well as 93 species of flora.” The XO began.

“95!” Doc cut in from his station.

“Yes, 95 species of flora. An ever-fluctuating number. We have air and geological samples from the various regions that will be brought aboard and analyzed…”

Michael held up his hand to stop Archie. “Woah, aren’t we going a little overboard?  This isn’t really a first contact mission.”

Archie folded his hands behind him, and produced a sweet smile on his face. “Well sir, at the heart of the expedition into the Shackleton Expanse, is scientific discovery, I figured since we are here, we could save headquarters the trouble of sending another ship by putting in the grunt work.”

Michael nodded his head, ready to accept this answer when Archie continued, taking on a more scowling look and darkening his tone. “And when I heard you were going on this away mission, I felt it was at least prudent of me, as your executive officer, to ensure your safety while on the planet’s surface was unassailable.”

Michael pursed his lips and looked away from Archie for a moment, “You heard that huh?”

“Sir, I’m a computer program. I hear everything.” Archie shot back condescendingly.

“Right…” Michael bemoaned in defeat, “So What else did we find?” He quickly added, trying to change the subject.

Archie rolled his eyes, turning back to the screen, “Still needing to wait for the translator to complete its analysis, but we did record and catalog several references to local apparel, craftsmanship designs, cicatrization, and—”

“Wait… cicatrization?” Michael asked, confused.

“Oh yea, ritualistic body scarring. Really prevalent in their culture.” Romen stated, joining the two at the display screen. “Actually, made me consider getting a few cuts done myself, right here around my arm.” He pointed to his bicep.

“Yes…it would fit you…” Archie muttered disparagingly.

Ignoring the XO, Romen continued enlightening the Commander, “They have unique body markings for nearly every occasion; age, accolades, relationships, regrets. I think we pinpointed the one for divorce, it’s located on the face of all places. We found a few that might indicate widowed, it’s in the same area but a different design. You could almost tell a persons life story just by looking at their body markings.”

“What about their social hierarchy?” Michael asked.

“Best we can tell, the land is ruled by states of composite monarchy. Various ‘clans’ are indicated by colored banners with some form of insignia on them, erected in territories and at the heart of civilizations. Some seem to share minor and major banners, while others incorporate only a single major banner. There are three key powers that control the northern, Southwestern, and eastern segments of the continent. The rest is made up of what appears to be independent bands of villages. We go in, it looks like one of them might be a good starting point to get our feet wet.” Romen reported.

“Ok, What about the ruins that are pulsating the energy signature we keep seeing?” Michael probed

“We thought to save that for last, sir.” Archie confessed.

There was a ‘Pzzt’ sound behind Michael, indicating a Hologram had zapped onto the bridge, and a moment later, Michael could hear Trixie’s voice as she approached from behind. “I don’t want to send any drones into the blind zone…” she exclaimed pointing at the middle of the map where their scans could not penetrate, “until I know what kind of dampening field we are working with. And since the energy from the outer ruins are feeding into this zone, it could possibly produce the same effect locally. With this being pre-warp, the last thing we need is one of the camouflage units to fail or us lose a unit and it fall into primitive hands.”

“True. Ok, lets wrap up recon and we can re-allocate some of the FOB’s to these various ruins sites. Let’s test one at a time, so were not potentially chasing multiple failures at once. And Trixie, no more boxes please.” Michael ordered.

Trixie looked heartbroken at his words, as she was JUST about to ask for more. Archie gave a smug –I told you so– look to her, which earned him the middle finger from the wounded engineer before she zapped back to Engineering.

[To be Continued]